I am inclined to think that the word "Hello" is a cognate of the Spanish "Hola" which in turn has links to the Spanish "Ole". (Mikael108 (talk) 11:27, 3 August
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I am inclined to think that the word "Hello" is a cognate of the Spanish "Hola" which in turn has links to the Spanish "Ole". (Mikael108 (talk) 11:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC))Mika
I believe one can find many uses of the British English "Hullo" variant in the Winnie_the_pooh books dating to the mid 1920's, although it may be an intentionally archaic usage. One will also see "hallo" there, IIRC. 12.44.50.248 (talk) 16:12, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
That is an amazing point, but in WW1 we used "Hello" as a way to check an allies system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dravaskan (talk • contribs) 23:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
This is quite an interesting page. I've never really thought about were the word Hello came from. Jogging4ever (talk) 21:40, 6 December 2008 (UTC)
The first written use of hello is spelt with an 'e' is in a letter of Edison's in August 1877 suggesting that the best way of starting a conversation by telephone was to say 'hello' because it 'can be heard ten to twenty feet away'.Edison discovered this while testing Alexander Graham Bell's prototype telephone. Bell himself preferred the rather nautical 'Ahoy, hoy!' Edison used to shout 'hello!' into telephone receivers at Menlo Park Labs while he was working on improvements to Bell's design. His habit spread to the rest of his co-workers and then to telephone exchanges until it became common usage. Before 'hello' was used, telephone operators used to say, 'Are you there?' or 'Who are you?' or 'Are you ready to talk?'Once 'hello' became standard the operators were called 'hello girls'.
'Hullo' was used at the time purely to express surprise. Charles Dickens used the word in this way in Oliver Twist (1839) when the Artful Dodger first notices Oliver with a 'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?'
'Halloo' was used to call hounds and ferrymen and was also a favourite word Edison's. When he first discovered how to record sound (18 July 1877) the word he shouted into the machine (the strip phonograph) was 'Halloo': 'I tried the experiment, first on a strip of telegraph paper, and found that the point made an alphabet. I shouted the word "Halloo! Halloo!" into the mouthpiece, ran the paper back over the steel point and heard a faint "Halloo! Halloo!' in return! I determined to make a machine that would work accurately, and gave my assistants instructions, telling them what I had discovered.'
The earliest recorded use of delegate badges saying 'Hello, My name is...' was at the telephone operators' convention in Niagara Falls in 1880. JontyD123 (talk) 12:43, 2 January 2009 (UTC)
{{unreferenced|section|date=2008}} Politizer talk/contribs 14:49, 2 January 2009 (UTC)I removed the references to 1826 uses via Google Books because both seem to be erroneous. The use in Report on the trade in foreign corn seems to be a scanning error on Google's part. It refers to a 'phone, so it's clearly from later than 1826. In The Every-day Book: Or Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements, Sports, Pastime, Ceremonies,..., I can only find holla, which might be related to hello, but probably not.
Ken Hirsch (talk) 21:05, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
So what was the standard greeting before hello became popular? —Kloth (talk) 01:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
Why is the article "Texas town says goodbye to 'hello'" (currently reference 12) from the Minnesota Daily cited as http://web.archive.org/web/20071215085841/http://www.mndaily.com/articles/1997/01/17/2982 while the same article can actually be found on the Minnesota Daily's website? http://www.mndaily.com/1997/01/17/texas-town-says-goodbye-hello —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.96.189.170 (talk) 11:38, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
Indonesians commonly use "Hello Mister" to greet westerners of any race/gender, and while it may sound abrupt to a British ear, is intended to be friendly. It seems quite revealing on how westerners are perceived to speak; I imagine it's the same in many other countries. Don't know if that's worth including. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.33.154.66 (talk) 08:42, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
From the article: "Hello may also be derived from Hullo. Hullo was in use before hello and was used as a greeting and also an expression of surprise."
I believe "hello" is also used as an expression of surprise. So is there actually a difference? Hakluyt bean (talk) 19:30, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
Why would you use a separate greeting on the phone? 75.118.170.35 (talk) 19:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
I did not see in the main article references to the Hawai'ian Aloha. This word sounds pretty close enough to the Hello / Allo forms. But apparently originates from a completely different ethymology. May somebody comment about that? (--Pb.marty (talk) 13:12, 14 September 2009 (UTC))
Hungarian forms:
(could not find the proper section)
The article does say the Hungarian version when answering the phone is: Halló!
Now, "I can hear you" is "Hallom" in Hungarian, and "can you hear me?" is "Hallod?"
Legend has it, when Tivadar Puskás, who was Hungarian and Edison used the phone first, between themselves. And Puskás said: Can you hear me? (Hallod?) to Edison, as in his excitement he spoke Hungarian instead of English...And this was reduced to Hallo by the English language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.96.50.46 (talk) 14:01, 25 December 2009 (UTC)
I did not see any reference to the french "salut". "Allo" is only the phone form, whereas "salut" is the popular form equivalent to "hello". In German, by comparison, I sort of remember that it is more or less the same "Hallo" everytime (except that germans born before the 70's will probably rather use short forms of "guten tag", like "'tag". I cannot edit the main article (protected page???). (--Pb.marty (talk) 13:18, 14 September 2009 (UTC))
I was looking for the origins of the command used by SMTP (email messenging protocols). ... is it an acronym? if yes, with which signification? is it related to the "hello" word?). May somebody help at this point? ;-) (--Pb.marty (talk) 13:22, 14 September 2009 (UTC))
Looking at the first version of this article, just by curiosity, I see that definitions #1 and #4 have roughly been preserved, definition #5 has been moved to the disambiguation page, but definitions #2 and #3 have been moved to wiktionary. It's not clear to me what to keep in a wikipedia article and what to move elsewhere (copy would have just been okay). (--Pb.marty (talk) 13:37, 14 September 2009 (UTC))
But I get a "Page not Found" when I click on reference #19. Could someone fix it please? --Habstinator (talk) 02:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! Ok, I'll do that next time I come across a broken link, and I'll keep that fact about posting at the bottom in mind. ;) --Habstinator (talk) 02:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
This is not controversy this is non-sense... A man in a Texan county attacking language itself for the sake of his religion is worthy of wiki-notoriety? I really don't have a problem with religions, but something is wrong when you can't say hello because it has a "bad word" in it. Religion is supposed to be a personal spiritual presence in your life not an infectious plague. As soon as we find another hospitable life-bearing planet I'm on the first ship out of this mess (hopefully before all of america starts accepting "heaven-o"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.113.198 (talk) 21:21, 17 November 2009 (UTC) Agreed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.246.169.56 (talk) 20:38, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
why the heck are people yelling about hello having a swear in it.there is no difference if it has a swear word i can make maybe 2-3 swears out of supercalafragilisticexpialladotiouse and when i say it nobodys like OMG you said a swear word so whats the point?HELP MEEEEEEE!anyway im speaking my thoughts.--Pokemon30 (talk) 21:39, 27 July 2011 (UTC)
There is a passage in Jane Eyre where Mr. Rochester greets Jane with Hillo!. Should this be included anywhere? --15lsoucy (talk) 15:41, 13 December 2009 (UTC)
Currently the section 'cognates' claims that Dutch 'hallo' is used "when answering the telephone". It is in fact used much more widely as a greeting and when calling attention, very much akin to the English 'hello. Any websearch for common Dutch phrases will confirm this. It would be best to remove "when answering the telephone". 92.0.122.6 (talk) 20:28, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
{{edit semi-protected}}
In the hello page, please add chinese hello to the table.
T1t2t1t2 (talk) 11:23, 2 December 2010 (UTC)
{{edit semi-protected}} Telephone: A.G. Bell invented the telephone but it was a Hungarian Tivadar Puskas that invented the manually operated switch board, and his company trough Bell, marketed it world wide with success, as his employees where putting in a new installation the test operators, mostly women tested each switch line. They could be heard Q: "hallod?" (Hungarian, meaning: "can you here it?") A:"hallom!" (Hungarian, meaning: "I can hear it!") the locals in most countries took it as part of the training and adopted this world wide as the customary thing to say upon establishing a connection. Hallo became the most frequently spoken word of Hungarian origin world wide.
Ty62 (talk) 14:03, 25 February 2011 (UTC)
I thank whomever created it, you are very talented. But what the hell is it doing in this article? It seems to be waving GOODBYE! Hello is a word, not a gesticulation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.22.152.207 (talk) 17:06, 1 April 2011 (UTC)
hello is a greeting word used in every language — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.147.66.42 (talk) 02:27, 18 November 2011 (UTC)
The New Zealand Maori 'Kia ora' is NOT a cognate of 'hello', but a word of pre-colonial origin with it's own meaning, literally 'be well'. To suggest that it is a cognate is both false and offensive, please have it removed. - requested 13 June 2011 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.57.217.23 (talk) 05:53, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
In Cognates sub-:
Portuguese "Alô" is actually only used in Brazil when answering the phone. In Portugal the equivalent would be "Olá" but this is normally used to greet people in a informal way, and it is not used when answering the phone.
This should be edited. 81.13.148.93 (talk) 16:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
Further adventures of the boy spy in Dixie By Joseph Orton Kerbey: Page 204: It was only necessary to call "Johnny" once to get a polite "Hello"; or if Johnny called first, it was "Hello, Yank." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.221.182.178 (talk) 02:01, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
Under the heading Hallo: It is used... and the example (poem) uses the word "hollo". ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 22:01, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps a brief explanation of the use of "07734" in Geekdom's Beghilos language would make an interesting addition to this page.
For those readers unfamiliar: when the digits on an old-school (7-segment) digital display are: 07734, when viewed upside-down, displays the word "hello". Perhaps the most common usage was (is?) as a beeper code. 07734 is one of the earliest examples of usage for beghilos. Although most sources attribute this to originating with 70s LED calculators, I can attest to it being used with the early (mid-60s?) "nixie-tube" calculators. ~Eric F 184.76.225.106 (talk) 23:39, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I suggest removal of the Apple section. There are millions of examples of "hello" used in computers, we have no hope or reason to document them. More importantly, this is an article on the spoken word "hello" - the salutation. I can't think of any reason to document an obscure feature of an obsolete OS in this article.
I'd also argue for removal of the "hello world" section on similar grounds, but at least "hello world" is universal in all computer language examples, whereas Apple DOS 3.x is both amazingly specific and irrelevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.13.177.204 (talk) 16:08, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
The sentences 'Friend David, I do not think we shall need a call bell as Hello! can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. What you think? Edison - P.S. first cost of sender & receiver to manufacture is only $7.00' are not cited and can be done so as these sentences can be sourced from the citing 7 (http://www.collectorcafe.com/article_archive.asp?article=800&id=1507). Tary123 (talk) 06:45, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Some people says that we use "hello" when pickup the phone because of the name of graham bell's girlfriend was 'Margaret hello' but this is not correct as hello was used as a greeting before the invention of telephone. Graham bell suggested to say "ahoy" to be used when we pickup the phone — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirza nawaid (talk • contribs) 07:11, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
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In Telephone the hallo comes form the original Hallo-girls: Hungarian switch board operators, employees of Tivadar Puskas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivadar_Pusk%C3%A1s the inventor of the telephone switchboard he worked for Edison and Bell. Their subsidiary employed young Hungarian women that where testing the new installations not just in the US but World-wide and also training the local personal, during line testing and consequently the operation. The women speaking Hungarian, testing the lines said 1000's of times daily Q: "Hallod?"(can you hear?) A:"Hallom!"(I can hear!) So "hallo" (the -d and -m in fast speech is almost silent) became the customary greeting not just in English speaking countries but all over the world where these switchboards/systems where installed. Ty62 (talk) 02:53, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
Suggest linking names like Dennis Ritchie and terms like Apple, BASIC, etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.158.139.227 (talk) 09:26, 8 August 2013 (UTC)
IF you enter "hi" is search, it redirects to "hello". But "hello" has no entomology for "hi" - which is not an obvious contraction of "hello". ("'lo" IS a contraction, but opposite is "hi"???) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.74.43.46 (talk) 12:44, 24 April 2013 (UTC)
>>>:Of course you don't find entomology for "hi" at this page Good point! Nasty little "bug". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.74.43.46 (talk) 13:57, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
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The tiny addition I would like to make is that "alo/ало" or "halo/хало" is also used in the South Slavic languages as an exclamation in conversations and, similarly to uses in diferent languages, to call attention. Bagofsalt (talk) 18:35, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
I feel like the two articles about "Hello, World" and Apple DOS are only loosely related to the page. While the rest of the page is on etymology and use, these seem like odd tangents. (Especially if they're alone without other loosely related parts; what about including different ways of greeting people (I'm kidding, of course)) Shouldn't we keep the page simple and remove them? CosineP (talk) 02:43, 3 May 2014 (UTC)Cosine
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| Cantonese | 哈佬! (Hah Loe!) | when friendly (informal) greeting 49.50.202.93 (talk) 13:19, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
Done - Arjayay (talk) 14:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
The lead says "It is attested in writing as early as the 1860s" while the very first sentence of the main body flatly contradicts the lead: "Hello, with that spelling, was used in publications as early as 1833". --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:10, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
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helo! 112.208.1.96 (talk) 15:22, 28 July 2014 (UTC)when answering the phone.
grahm bells girlfriend name was hello he was usually using this word over a telephone...... people stolen the world......... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.8.2.68 (talk) 16:14, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
Please remove Greek from the table or give an explanation because both words don't sound like they were derived from "hello". This is not a page to mention how to greet someone in as many languages as possible. --2.245.174.209 (talk) 13:00, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
This section is very vague. What does "in some other nations" mean? It only mentions Chinese. And Cantonese is Chinese, you included it in your table with 哈佬, which is not standard, but a recent development due to the influence of English. The with Mandarin 哈啰, which is used a lot by young people. Mandarin is not included in the table. --2.245.174.209 (talk) 13:10, 24 January 2015 (UTC)
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|Ukrainian |سلام واليكم! |when answering the telephone — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.185.173.55 (talk) 07:26, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
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In the subheading Cognates, "alô" is said to be a Portuguese greeting used on the phone only in Brazil, although it is occasionally used in Portugal. In the same subheading, I would like to suggest the addition of the greeting "olá", which is the most widely used general greeting in Portugal and has the same etymology of the word "hello". Jgpestana (talk) 23:15, 7 April 2015 (UTC)
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146.200.12.94 (talk) 09:23, 4 August 2015 (UTC)
Hello seems to have come from German and English - so Germanic origins. YET there are semantic differences in both.
In German the normal form is Hallo and in English it is Hello (even in the UK of 21st century rather than upper class of 1930s when Hullo might have been more prevalent). The WORD has several uses: - 1. Checking if someone is listening - telephone makes this use. Hence the TV show Allo Allo 2. Informal greeting - seems most predominant in English and less used auf Deutsch - though it is used. 3. An exclamation that something is amiss or has been missed or not thought of by the audience so addressed. THIS seems most common in German and less common in English usage. Although the policeman saying "Hello what have we got here then" shows this usage.
The German Wikipedia bears this out - but I do not know of any sources that make this clear without looking for them. Perhaps Leo or other dictionaries have this???
As for the etymplogy - Wassail - and Hail and evolving to Hello seems argued for but not supported. Non German origins like French do not seem to have any merit here, - yet are mentioned without any well argued bases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.190.66.111 (talk) 20:50, 28 August 2015 (UTC)
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Could you include Nepali language:
Hello -हेल्लो ( pronounced as hail-loh) thank you Pragatigh (talk) 04:35, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
I request you to add a link to the "Integer BASIC" word under "The Apple DOS HELLO program" section. I could not edit it as it is semi-protected.
Thank you. Kaartic (talk) 09:30, 2 November 2015 (UTC)
Hello is the most common word which is used for initiate a communication. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.211.166.121 (talk) 05:47, 20 May 2015 (UTC) hello is a welcoming word hello just say it hello it feels welcoming. hi is short for hello <hi means hello> — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.6.34.87 (talk) 19:39, 29 February 2016 (UTC)
"As in addition to hello, halloo,[7] hallo, hollo, hullo and (rarely) hillo also exist as variants or related words, the word can be spelt using any of all five vowels.[citation needed]" It's been lacking a citation for four years, and seems a bit silly. Halloo and hullo are sometimes seen, but does anyone seriously spell it "hollo" or "hillo"? If you ever see that it's likely a typo. The fact that this sentence gets "as an addition" mixed up with "in addition" to create the nonsensical "as in addition" suggests we're not dealing with a linguistic genius here. Maybe someone with editing rights could delete or tidy this sentence? 210.246.53.219 (talk) 09:41, 16 April 2016 (UTC)
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hello is used in many different language but all mean the same. 71.101.109.96 (talk) 00:30, 22 April 2016 (UTC)
I'm not quite sure the right way to report it, but the new redirect for 11 doesn't help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.36.82.28 (talk) 15:33, 30 January 2017 (UTC) Thanks for the note. I've fixed it using the Wayback Machine. Graham87 12:50, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
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The following intro can be corrected, "Hello is a salutation or greeting in the English language. It is first attested in writing from 1833."
I've found at least two printed accounts in 1827, the earliest from the following source found on newspapers.com :
The Torch Light And Public Advertiser (Hagerstown, Maryland) page 1 · Thu, Oct 11, 1827 in an article called "The Grand Descent" (reprinted from the New England Galaxy)
another
The Wyoming Herald (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) · Fri, Nov 23, 1827 page 1 in an article called The Stepmother 143.85.163.18 (talk) 18:12, 2 February 2017 (UTC)
Hello is also a song by Adele. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dancingkittenmagicapple (talk • contribs) 23:10, 10 February 2017 (UTC)
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An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Hello, Wikipedia!. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. signed, Rosguill talk 19:30, 22 November 2019 (UTC)
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Remove the “Hello World” section. This is not relevant to the specific word Hello, and is better suited elsewhere. John828171 (talk) 13:42, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Halloed. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 September 11#Halloed until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. TheAwesomeHwyh 19:57, 11 September 2020 (UTC)
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i would like to add some information on how the word "hello" was created 142.24.50.5 (talk) 16:25, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
hi, or HELLO, its me again,
another problem i have with this image, it is strangely framed, it nearly matches the bottom line with the "Early uses" 2nd-level-topic, so it should be imho in the top most position instead and thereby don't effect the 2nd-level topics at all (im viewing this on classic 4:3 resolution with 110-130% page-zoom do to bad eyes)...
--Mr.T. 31.172.106.163 (talk) 09:58, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
the image of the "Printed Hello" that i tried to change in "printed all-capital Hello," is IMHO hardly relevant, see image talk on commons
-- Mr.T. 31.172.106.163 (talk) 09:51, 27 April 2021 (UTC)
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Please include the fact that "Hi" is an informal way of saying hello. Neelbaban (talk) 19:15, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
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